A sensational performance from the spinners—Sophie Molineux, Shreyanka Patil and Asha Sobhana—powered Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) to their maiden TATA Women's Premier League (WPL) title win as they beat Delhi Capitals (DC) by eight wickets in a tightly contested Final at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi.
Molineux turned the match around with a splendid three-wicket over after the DC openers had put on a breezy 64 for the first wicket. Shreyanka Patil (4/12) and Asha Sobhana (2/14) joined the wicket-taking party as RCB bowled DC out for 113 in 18.3 overs.
Smriti Mandhana (31 off 39), Sophie Devine (32 off 27), Ellyse Perry (35* off 37) and Richa Ghosh (17* off 14) then played crucial knocks in the chase to help RCB chase down the target in the last over and win by eight wickets.
Chasing 114, RCB got off to a steady start as the openers—Smriti Mandhana and Sophie Devine—added 49 for the first wicket. The pair started off cautiously, scoring 25 in the Powerplay. Devine then pressed the accelerator button and went berserk against Radha Yadav, smashing three fours and a six to accumulate 18 off the over.
Just as Mandhana and Devine were looking to continue the momentum, Shikha Pandey provided the breakthrough as she trapped Devine (32 off 27) LBW. The wicket dried up the runs, as just 12 runs came in the 8-12 over period. Perry and Mandhana then released the pressure valve with two fours off Arundhati Reddy in the 13th over. Perry hit another four, lofting one over mid off, in the next over from Jess Jonassen. However, there was another twist as Minnu Mani had the big wicket of captain Mandhana (31 off 39), who miscued her loft to mid on.
With 32 needed off 30, Perry and Richa Ghosh got together, mixed caution with aggression, rotated the strike, hit an odd boundary an over, and brought the equation down to five needed off six balls. Reddy, bowling the final over, gave away two singles off the first two balls. But Ghosh smacked the third ball over extra cover for four to finish it off in style with three balls to spare.
Earlier, Delhi Capitals captain Meg Lanning won the toss and elected to bat. Openers Shafali Verma and Lanning got off to a solid start as they scored 61 in the Powerplay. Lanning survived a run out scare off the second ball of the match after a mix-up with Verma, but the pair got into the groove soon and hit five fours and three sixes in the first six overs. Shafali was the aggressor as she raced to 42 off 21 balls inside the Powerplay.
Smriti Mandhana's bowling changes then worked wonders for the RCB as Georgia Wareham bowled a tight seventh over, giving away just three. The RCB captain then brought back Sophie Molineux, and she turned the match around, sending back Shafali (44 off 27), Jemimah Rodrigues (0 off 2) and Alice Capsey (0 off 1) in the same over.
After another frugal over, Shreyanka Patil got the huge wicket of Lanning (23 off 23), trapping her LBW. The boundaries completely dried up, the pressure built and RCB maintained a stranglehold. It brought another couple of wickets as Asha Sobhana struck twice in the 14th over, dismissing Marizanne Kapp and Jess Jonassen.
Radha Yadav hit a couple of fours in the 16th over to provide DC some relief, but the wickets kept tumbling as RCB bowled DC out for 113 in 18.3 overs.
It was a splendid performance from the RCB spinners, as they picked up 9 wickets among them. Patil scalped four wickets, while Molineux and Asha picked up three and two wickets, respectively.